Abstract
Recently, ankle braces became available not only at hospitals but also at retail sports shops and are now used
by many volleyball players. Nevertheless, the incidence of ankle sprain is not very low, even when the players
wear braces. Therefore the effectiveness of ankle braces has sometimes been questioned by coaches. In this
study the cause of ankle sprains were examined when the players were wearing braces.
The subjects were 112 female top-level volleyball players in Japanese high school. Fifty-two subjects were
wearing ankle braces. Of these 52 subjects, 17 (32.7% ; group A) have sprained their ankles while wearing the
ankle braces. Of these 52 subjects, 35 (67.3% ) have not sprained their ankles while wearing the braces. One
hundred and ten subjects were not wearing ankle braces. Of these 110 subjects, 86 (78.2% ) have sprained their
ankles while not wearing ankle braces. Of these 110 subjects, 24 (21.8% ) have not sprained while not wearing
braces.
Sprain protective efficacy of ankle braces was analyzed using chi-square test. The deviation of the number
was significant(χ2 ＝ 31.6 p＜0.05, df=1), which showed ankle braces protect ankles effectively under the level of
significance 5% .
Of 88 subjects with history of ankle sprain, 36 had repeated sprains. In group A, 15 out of 17 subjects had
repeated sprains. It is statistically significantly higher number of repeated sprains than group B by chi-square
analysis (p＜0.01). As for the cause that some players sprained even at the time of wearing them, ankle braces
was not enough effective to prevent players from spraining but there were some factors in the players who
were wearing them.
In group A, the rate of medical consultation for the first injury was low, and even when they had medical
consultation, some of them received lighter treatments. So, it is recommended that the players should take
medical consultations and receive treatments that were recommended by the doctors when they sprained them
and players should be educated on this topic. Above all, it is recommended to wear ankle braces in appropriate way for prevention of ankle sprains only at the time of a match form preventively for all volleyball players.
